Tuesday, July 12, 2011

SHAC Horror - SHAC caught lying again!

From our corespondent in the interweb:

.........the documents you reference in the post here do not confirm what you say. They are simply copies of the loan agreements copied from public records. The link to the document that says they have confirmed to SHAC the loan is over leads to a blank pdf.

Furthermore the loan documents show that July 2011 is when the loan was due to end so it seems that the Fortress loan has simply been repaid by HLS rather than withdrawn as you claim.

If as HLS claim their revenue for 2009/2010 was the highest for 11 years then it is likely they are close to zero debt something you say is not the case, could you say how you have come up with these numbers?

Oh dear - was SHAC stung by the prescient SHACWATCH story regarding the documented AR implosion? Did this drive them to this silly and obvious lie?

10 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Well you obviously care otherwise

It's ridiculous to suggest they havce cleared their debts within 2 years Even running at max capacity and assuming they have cut all overheads to bare minimum they could not have cleared off all their debts... unless ofcourse the rumours about selling their UK sites for property development are true.

While HLS are out of the financial mire that they were in as recently as a few years ago I doubt that they have managed to wipe out the debt that quickly, it was most likely rolled over to a new financier. There is an unspoken agreement with these companies that they will sign up for a few years and the pattern goes like this: they remain secret for a year, then they get hassle for a while and then they "drop out". After which they have pocketed a fat wad of cash. And with the state of SHAC at the moment that hassle is forever diminishing.

SHAC speak of things in the past tense that are still true:"HLS were once a dominant player in the CRO market." Madness!

To SHAC's credit they did put Huntingdon out of business in 2001; they were no longer a viable company and the government had to rescue them. That is success. The rules of the game were changed when the government agreed to step in and to continue to play a new game by the old rules is a recipe for disaster. There is no shame in being beaten by a superior opponent, the shame is in not recognising that fact and moving on.

It is worth noting that on page 8 of this document: http://www.shac.net/action/fortress/Fortress%20Order%20July%202011.pdf the "interested party" Stephen Parker's correspondence address is listed as the Pogo "Cafe" (76 Clarence Road, Hackney. Now I Don't know who this no doubt rather insalubrious person is but it shows the group of people who are running SHAC. The police would ordinarily have raided the place by now but the goons down there are a threat to noone and are probably quite entertaining for the old plod.

With SHAC in chaos right now the revelation that HLS is in better financial shape that it has been for years must be a bitter blow.

SHAC has of course got a long history of claiming victory when no such thing exists so calling the routine repayment of a loan as the result of SHAC pressure is no great surprise.

SHAC has tried many tactics violence, financial intimidation, secondary protesting and attacks on individuals but these have all failed. At the same time the former secret details of how SHAC donations have been used to fund lifestyles for certain individuals and of course a cottage in France have hit their regular funding very hard.

As a campaign SHAC has of course failed that is clear however the wider question about the near disintigration of the UK AR movement because of the actions of one or two individuals is a more complex question that needs investigation.

"Former SHAC supporter" raised an interesting point about the motivation behind those who have ruined SHAC and are now moving on to other parts of the UK AR scene. Are their actions linked to stupidity, a desire to wreck, access to easy money or something more sinister ? Back in 2004 when I first became involved with animal rights work the scene was vibrant, strong, committed and looking like it was really going to change things. Shortly after that new faces started to pop up, individuals who had a lot of time on their hands as well as money and vehicles. That's when the arguments started, the "I'm more vegan than you" discussions, the diversions from the work into distracting areas of political debate. I remember one meeting where a get together called to plan an action ended up being a five hour argument about why we didn't have any Asian members in our working group.

I no longer work with any recognised 'group' or organisation preferring to do my own thing and get results that way. Experience breeds knowledge.

The comments by "Londoner" mirror my own experiences. I was a SHAC supporter for some time taking part in a number of demos but I stopped turning up when every meeting was dominated by two young men who joined at the same time, never seem to do any real job but were the centre of every argument. They were needed because they had access to a van and were always keen to do a lot of the boring stuff that others didn't like.

@Londoner, I'm sure you know that Donal O'Driscoll aka Max Gastone works for the cops. Its pretty obvious really so I'm not sure why this isn't mentioned as much as Luke Steele, Loony Sawyer and others.

About SHACWATCH

Shacwatch was established to counter the lies promulgated by SHAC on their own website and on sites such as Indymedia - these sites have proved incapable of maintaining a balance between the minority views of ALF extremists and the truth - SHACWATCH will provide that balance.